


All The Things We Never Say

by uistic



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternative Universe - Roman Betrays the Shield, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uistic/pseuds/uistic
Summary: Afterwards Seth laughs, shocked disbelief giving it a hollow ring. ”I always thought it’d be me.”It’s the first words he’s spoken since the chair hit him.Dean curls in on himself and says nothing.





	All The Things We Never Say

**Author's Note:**

> At some point, somewhere, I read a prompt about an AU where Roman turned on the Shield. I can't find it again, but hopefully whoever wanted it is still around to stumble over this somehow.

Seth's first irrational thought is that he's been shot. The sudden impact throws him forward, makes his teeth rattle, and he doesn’t feel the pain at first, just the way the blow vibrates through his bones. All members of Evolution are outside of the ring, Dean's on his right and Roman's watching their backs. The attack has to have come from the crowd. He catches a glimpse of Dean's face, the raw, naked betrayal. The second blow takes him down and by the time he can see anything at all again, it’s already over.

Roman is standing with Evolution. Triple H has his hand on Roman’s shoulder, grinning like a shark, and Roman’s face is horribly blank.

Back at the hotel room there are no words. They’re not good at comfort which leaves them with something harsher, sharper, tinged with grief and shame and rage. Every new bruise is a promise of vengeance etched into the marrow of their bones.

Afterwards Seth laughs, shocked disbelief giving it a hollow ring. ”I always thought it’d be me.”

It’s the first words he’s spoken since the chair hit him.

Dean curls in on himself and says nothing.

 

Roman keeps the music, the entrance and the ring gear. It feels like a slap in the face. He doesn’t destroy the Shield, he steals it, walks away with everything as if it's his to keep and leaves them scrambling. Roman's eyes are cold, his smiles sharp as he looks right through them. 

”This is my yard,” he says, smug and secure with the Authority behind him, security flanking him, and Dean growls and goes for his throat and the Authority sets up a handicap match with some bullshit stipulations designed specifically to make them lose.

They lose.

June turns into July which gives way to August, and they keep losing.

 

They burn their old ring gear at the side of the road somewhere deep in Arizona. Up above, the stars are brilliant pinpoints of lights, brighter than Seth can remember ever having seen them before.

”I want the title,” Seth says, watching as the smoke turns gray, then black.

”I want to bust his face open.”

Seth holds out his fist. After a moment, Dean closes his hand and places his fist against Seth’s.

”Believe that,” Seth murmurs and Dean huffs a joyless laugh.

They watch until the fire is coals and embers, sitting on the hood of the car surrounded by the cold, rocky desert, as far from Florida as they could come without crossing the border to Canada and driving until they hit snow.

 

”You think he misses us?”

They’re doing shots in a seedy little bar in San Jose, California, where the paint’s flaking off the dark red walls and the leftover Christmas decorations blink away over the counter, green-red-blue, green-red-blue. Seth scoffs, because they’re at least six shots in and it’s a little funny how they talk about Roman like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. When they talk about him at all. Usually, he’s the silence that punctuates their statements, the punchline that never comes.

Tonight is different. Maybe it’s the liquor, maybe Money in the Bank looming on the horizon. Whatever it is, Dean’s looking like he needs an answer, and Seth can’t bring himself to tell him the truth.

”Yeah, man. For sure.”

Roman’s all about family, and to Roman there is no brotherhood outside of the bloodline. His family - dynasty, even - is enormous. For all that he gets in the ring and talks about _one against all_ he’s never done it alone. 

”Don’t fucking lie to me.” Dean’s drunk, his speech a little slurred, gestures big and sweeping. He means to punch Seth’s arm and almost knocks their glasses off the table.

Seth rescues his glass with a glare, licking the spilled whiskey from the base of his thumb. Dean’s gaze catches on it, suddenly intent, and Seth feels a familiar stirring in the pit of his belly. They haven’t shared a bed since that night. Haven’t talked about it either. That doesn’t mean he’s not tempted. But Dean’s straight, Roman’s straight, and Seth has a list of unfortunate crushes as long as his arm. ”All right. No. I think he used us. Took what he needed and moved on. Well, fuck him. We’re better off without that son of a bitch, and I wouldn’t take him back if he begged."

Dean closes his eyes. ”I would.” His voice is flat, empty.

Seth downs his shot, feeling it burn all the way. ”Yeah.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, wondering if he’ll ever find the courage to be as honest as Dean is. ”Maybe.”

 

Dean can't sleep. It takes Seth weeks to catch on, and when he does he feels like shit about it. Should have seen the shadows deepening around Dean's eyes, the lines of exhaustion etched into his skin, noticed the empty bed that only got reclaimed in the cold, lonely hour just before dawn.

Back at the hotel after another show, another loss, Seth pushes Dean up against the wall and falls to his knees, opening Dean's zipper with hands and teeth.

"I know what you're doing," Dean says, a hand curled loosely in Seth's hair. 

Seth pauses to glare up at him. ”Well, good. I’d be pretty fucking insulted if you didn't.” Sucking off straight guys is a gamble. He pretends that his hands aren’t shaking, that he’s not nervous as hell about being pushed away and told to fuck off.

He makes Dean come twice. The first, messy blowjob barely counts. He wishes he could ride Dean, hands on his chest, looking him in the eyes as he comes, but he knows where the line is between plausible deniability and too gay to handle, so he doesn’t ask. Instead, he coaxes Dean back to hardness with his mouth and then jerks him off, slow and measured. Dean doesn’t reciprocate. He does kiss Seth, though, filthy and urgent, and later in the shower Seth gets himself off thinking about that kiss and the almost reverent way that Dean touched his face.

Seth takes the bed furthest from the door and closes his eyes. He hears the click of the light switch, naked feet against the carpet. After a few moments Dean joins him in a tangle of limbs, the other bed left empty.

Dean sleeps that night.

Seth stays awake until early morning, listening to the shared sound of their breathing.

 

Roman enters through the crowd like he’s invulnerable, head held high even when the heat turns into a thunderous roar that drowns out anything else. He’s hated. He’s hated and he doesn’t _care_  and it drives Seth crazy. These days Roman’s like a diamond, all the rough edges polished off, his rage firmly under control, the clumsiness on the mic a distant memory. He walks with a swagger Seth doesn’t remember, he smirks at his opponents and tears through them like paper. 

Dean watches Roman. Seth watches Triple H.

He can’t help but wonder what it would have been like if Triple H had come to him instead. Most of the time he imagines refusing, but then, every once in a while, he imagines saying yes.

He doesn’t know why it gets to him so much. He’s never wanted to take the easy way out. But the thought of being chosen and elevated high above the rest, of Hunter’s massive hand on his shoulder, maybe holding him up, maybe pushing him down… It’s surprisingly heady.

The first time he jerks off to it, he comes so hard his knees buckles and he ends up kneeling on the floor in the shower, trying to catch his breath.

 

Dean is nothing if not perceptive. People always think he’s thoughtless, a dumb brawler, but Seth has never met a man who pays attention the way Dean does. Even knowing that, he's still taken off guard when Dean kills the radio thirty minutes out of Philadelphia and turns to him.

”All right, spill it. What have you done?" 

Seth feels his stomach bottom out. "What? What are you talking about?” He winces at the shrill, defensive tone that makes him sound shady as fuck. Dean stares at him, unamused, and Seth grips the wheel tighter, focusing on the road ahead as if he’s sixteen and driving for the first time. "I haven't done anything."

"You're lying.” He hasn't heard Dean sound like this in years, flat and emotionless and scary. For a moment he thinks that Dean has figured him out, knows that the blowjob wasn’t a one time thing, that Seth’s been creeping on him for a while now. ”You're feeling guilty.”

Seth laughs, heart pounding like a sledgehammer striking iron. He can even taste it in his mouth. ”Aren’t I always?”

”If you’ve been talking to Trips- or Roman-”

”No! No, Dean. I wouldn’t. I’m not a sellout.”

”You said you thought it’d be you.”

Seth swallows and doesn’t even glance at Dean. He did say that, didn’t he? He never meant for the Shield to last forever. But that was before Dean became _Dean_ , before Roman started talking about brotherhood, before the fist bumps and the kisses and the hugs, the adrenaline and the victories and yes, the losses, the ones that taught him that victory wasn’t the only thing that mattered anymore. He pulls over, kills the engine, and turns to Dean. "I'm not talking to them. I swear. I'm not going anywhere." 

"Then what the fuck is it?"

They're not good with trust or with comfort. Seth could lie or deflect but Dean would know, and something between them would be broken. ”It’s just a sex thing,” he admits, face heating. "It's not even - It was just a fantasy, but it's a shitty one and I shouldn't have gone there but I couldn't help myself and I don't know what's wrong with me." His voice breaks a little but he soldiers on, pretending like it didn’t happen, like Dean can’t see the cracks in his composure. "You're gonna hate me if I tell you so please don't ask. But it was just one time, I swear. And I'd never act on it. Never."

For a long while, all Seth hears is the pounding of his heart and the cars roaring past.

"Hey, man." Dean punches his shoulder. "Fantasize about whatever, I don't care. Just don't get all shifty and weird on me. All right?”

 

Roman gets the briefcase at Money in the Bank. Dean gets a broken shoulder, and Seth gets chokeslammed into the mat so hard that he blacks out. When he opens his eyes again, Cena is holding the title over his head.

He half expects Roman to cash in his contract, right then and there, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

 

They start sleeping together almost every night. Just that. Just sleeping.

They fight, and they lose, and they sleep curled up together, and they never talk about any of it until late October, deep in the heart of Texas, when it all comes to a head and Seth can’t take it anymore.

”I’m gay,” he blurts out, and it’s the scariest thing he’s ever done, but they’ve been not talking for months and months and it’s killing him. ”I love you. Shit, shit, fuck. Shit. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, man. I fucked it up.”

Dean looks bewildered, then amused. ”Dumbass.” He puts down his tape and shoves Seth lightly. ”You thought I didn’t know? That the extremely gay sex didn’t give it away?”

”I,” Seth manages, but it’s like his ability to form words has been knocked out of him.

”I’m not gonna say it. Last time I did, the son of a bitch walked out. But if you haven’t figured out by now that this means something, you’re way more stupid than you look. And you look pretty damn stupid already.”

It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to him. Seth leans forward and kisses Dean, long and slow and gentle.

”Go kick his ass,” he says. ”Give him hell.”

Dean does.


End file.
